A 54-year-old man was diagnosed with acute renal failure after taking five kinds of cold medicine recently in Qingdao, Shandong province.

The man, surnamed Wang, caught a bad cold about half a month ago. As a treatment, he at first took pills but stopped when he found them to be of no help.

He then diagnosed the cold as being serious. Believing he needed strong medicine to bring about a cure, he took five kinds of medicine at the same time.

But the medicine took effect in the opposite way. By the next day, the man's body had swollen. He suffered from nausea and back pains. His family sent him to the hospital.

"The tests showed that the acute damage caused by the medication to his renal function was equal to that caused by uremia," said the doctor in charge. The doctor warned that overdosing on cold medicines will directly harm the function of kidneys.

The old man is in stable condition, but his kidney injury is irreversible.

(Qianjiang Evening News)